Page Six 



EVOLUTION 



Aprii., 1929 



The Earliest Men 



By EDWARD GRIEG CLEMMER 



T N 1891, Dr. Dubois, a Dutch army surgeon stationed 

 in Java, was hunting for fossil remains of prehis- 

 toric animals along the Bengawan River. On a sandy 

 shelf he found a tooth not entirely human, yet not 

 wholly ape-like. Some weeks later he found a skull- 

 cap at the same level but more than a yard away. 

 Next year a thigh bone and another tooth came to 

 light, the thigh bone some fifty feet nearer the river. 

 These four specimens were all at the same level and 

 nearly in line. In 1907 and 1908, Madame Selenka 

 made an expedition to the island, searched very care- 

 fully, but found only one more tooth. 



From these five remnants : a skull-cap, a thigh bone 

 and three teeth, scientists have reconstructed a creature 

 about half way between the ape and man. It may 

 seem absurd to reconstruct an entire man from such 

 fragments, but the methods warrant the conclusions 

 reached by the experts. The skull-cap tells a great deal 

 about the enclosed lirain and indicates the creature's 

 intelligence. The teeth tell something of the character 

 of the jaw and of the food the possessor ate. The 

 smooth end surfaces of the thigh bone in contact 

 with the hip socket and shin bone help to decide the 

 angles at which the bones were placed and therefore 

 whether the creature stood erect, as does man, or 

 slouched, as does the ape. 



The skull-cap has a very marked ridge over the eyes, 

 a sloping, narrow forehead and a brain capacity estim- 

 ated at about 985 cubic centimeters. The capacity of 

 an adult male gorilla is 550 cubic centimeters and the 

 African bushman, a very low type of present man, 

 1240 cubic centimeters. The thigh bone indicates that 

 the Java man walked erect and freely used his hands. 

 In view of the primitive skull and the erect posture, 

 the creature was given the scientific name "Pithecan- 

 thropus erectus," the erect ape-man. 



After the ape-man period comes a great gap of hun- 

 dreds of thousands of years while the earth was in the 

 icy grip of the first and second glacial ages. Then 

 the ice withdrew and warm weather returned, with an 

 abundance of plants and animals. The time was again 

 idea! for mankind. From this period we have re- 

 covered one human jaw, buried 82 feet below the sur- 



face in a sand pit six miles southeast of Heidelberg, 

 Germany, whence its name, the Heidelberg jaw. 



Perhaps its most striking characteristic is the lack 

 of chin. Were not the teeth conclusively human, it 

 could well have been taken for the jaw of an ape. 



The next important find is the Piltdown skull. The 

 English anthropologist, Charles Dawson, walking down 

 a Susse.x roaa, noticed that some fresh earth contained 

 brown flints not common in that part of the country. 

 He traced them to a gravel bed and warned the work- 



Fossit Jaw of Heidelberg Ma:: 



Restored Skulls of Java Ape-man and I'lltdown Dawn-man 

 (Dark parts found; light parts restored) 



men not to throw away any bones they might find. 

 When later, a workman showed him a broken human 

 skull bone, he searched carefully, but found no others. 

 But in 1911 he found part of the forehead and the 

 ridge over the right eye. Then, in the spring of 1912, 

 with Dr. A. Smith Woodward of the British Museum, 

 he made a systematic search, even sifting the loose 

 earth for small fragments. They were rewarded with 

 more skull parts and the broken right lower jaw. 



The skull, when pieced together, was very peculiar 

 and excited much controversy. All agreed that the 

 skull was humanly modern, but differed as to the jaw. 

 For the jaw was very primitive and the experts could 

 not understand why it had not developed in proportion 

 to the skull. Some thought it the jaw of a chimpanzee 

 and even gave this new species of ape a name. Every 

 scientist qualified to judge considered and debated the 

 evidence. After a virtual "ordeal of fire," in which 

 every scrap of evidence, both pro and con, had been 

 carefully weighed liy the most competent men in the 

 world, remains of a second individual came to light, 

 indicating that the fragments were of one individual. 



The cranial capacity of the skull was set by Wood- 

 ward at 1070 cubic centimeters. The brain case was 

 thick, but the forehead much higher than that of the 

 Java man, even higher than that of the Neanderthal 

 race which came much later. However, from a study 

 of the cast of the brain cavity, G. Elliot Smith, a high 

 authority, concludes that the brain center in control 

 of articulate speech was but feebly developed. He was 

 "Eoanthropus," a true "dawn man." His skull marks 

 him as ancestor of man, but his jaw shows that he was 

 not yet full fledged. 



We have seen that the Java man stood on the border 

 line between the ape and man, that the Heidelberg 



